Where To Shop

Where to shop

There are several national drugstore chains that offer great incentive programs. I have found ways to use these incentive programs to rack up on lots of freebies. Some of the items I have gotten over the past year include a GPS, Digital Photo Frame, Portable DVD player, Digital Camera, Wii Guitar Hero, Christmas and Birthday gifts and all of my necessities for Free or almost Free!

CVS

CVS is my favorite. For me it has been the easiest to learn and grasp. So I would suggest starting out with CVS. CVS offers a program called the "Extra Care Bucks" Program which is referred to as the ECB program. CVS will give you "Cash Back" on certain purchases. The Cash back is in the form of CVS Coupons which can be used on anything in the store (Except alcohol, gift cards and tobacco products). Make sure to get sign up and get a customer card. There is an art to utilizing these coupons and I am going to show you the tricks to getting the most bang for your buck.

To start out, you may want to "Invest" between $5-$20 for your first shopping trip. There are resources out there such at www.afullcup.com that has CVS Ads posted before they are released on Sunday. This is a great tool because you can better prepare yourself for the week. So here is an example of what can be done at CVS:

CVS offers a Sale on an item and will give you $5 ECB's for purchasing it. For instance, CVS may have Maybelline Mascara on sale for $7 and you get $5 ECBs for purchasing it. What that means is that you will have to "Pay" the $7 upfront and you get a coupon for $5 off your next purchase. CVS also limits the amount of items you can get on your CVS card so be sure to read the fine print before taking that $5 and trying to buy another Maybelline Mascara. What makes this a FREE deal is that I have a $2 manufacture coupon for Maybelline Mascara that I can use with this. So, I end up paying $5 oop (Out Of Pocket) and get back $5 in ECBs. In essence, it is free. That is where the initial investment comes into play. You have now invested $5 of your own money and now have $5 ECBs to use towards your next purchase.

Now I do a second transaction. CVS is offering a sale, buy Colgate Toothpaste for $2.99 get $2.99 ECBs, which is Free After ECBs. I have a $1 manufacture coupon so my total is $1.99. I have $5 in ECBs so I need to get something else to make my total at lease $5. CVS is also having a sale, Buy 2 Pantenes at $6 get $3 ECBs. I have a $1 coupon for each of those. So, I add the toothpaste at $2.99 and the Pantenes at $6 equals $8.99. Subtract the coupons and the $5 ECBs and the total oop is $0.99 and I get an ECB for $2.99 and $3 which is now $5.99.

Continue doing this and rolling and building up your ECBs.

CVS Tips and Tricks

• CVS also prints coupons known as CRT's (Cash Register Tape) on the bottom if your receipts. These are CVS coupons and can be used with manufacture coupons for even more savings. For instance, CVS has Tums on sale for $2.99. I got a CVS CRT coupon for $2 off Tums and I had a $1 manufacture coupon making it Free!
• Most stores have Coupon printers located in the store. You scan your CVS card and CVS coupons print. You can often scan your card several times and get more coupons. Keep scanning until the machine says "No more coupons, please check back tomorrow".
• I always check clearaced items. You can use your manufacture and CVS coupons on clearanced items. Once an item hits either 50% or 75% the store may choose to move them to an endcap which is filled with clearanced items. The store will then mark through the bar code. This becomes a problem for couponers because the coupon will not scan for the item. The cashier is suposed to manually key in the coupon. You can use coupons with clearanced merchandise at CVS. I have run into this problem several times and contacted the District manager who personally responded by e-mail and a phone call. I keep that e-mail with me so when a cashier tells me I cannot use the coupon, I pull out the e-mail and they take the coupons.
• You are not supposed to have more than one card per Household. (You can work around this by using other friends and family members cards that are not in your HH). Try not to use more than one CVS card at the same time or store unless your store is OK with it. You can cause red flags to go up if you do that.
• I find the best time to shop is first thing the day after truck day. You can always ask the manager when truck day is. Now, if it is a hot item, then shop on truck day and ask if they got it in on the truck if the shelves are not stocked. They are usually very busy on truck day so take that into consideration.
• To make it easier for the cashiers/managers, break your transactions into smaller ones. That way you can move out of the way and let the customer behind you go if a line forms. I do this everytime and the cashiers appreciate it and so do the customers. Sometimes the manager is working when I go in and he will open a register just for me.
• Communicate with the store manager about upcoming Hot deals. This way the manager knows what items will be hot sellers so he can order heavy on those. This will help with stock issues at your store. Also, ask them if you are able to have them order larger quantities of items for upcoming sales for you.
• Bring them donuts and pizza and share your coupons with them. They are always more receptive to you and less likely to give you a hard time about using coupons.
• Always have your scenerio's worked out ahead of time. Be sure to figure in tax so that you are not thrown off. Also, tax percentage will normally vary for each item. For instance, food and meds are taxed less. Also, we have an additional 2% local tax here.
• Make a shopping list and follow it to a T. Make notes on it if you see something out of stock so you can ask for a raincheck. Also have a few ideas worked out in case they are out of stock on an item in your scenerio.
• Get rainchecks. They never expire. I sometimes hold onto a raincheck for an item until I get a great coupon for it and then use it. A raincheck basically allows you to purchase the item at the sale price at anytime.
• Take a calculator. Sometimes you have to re-work your scenerio on the fly and it helps to have a small handy calculator.
• Have your coupons already pulled and sorted before you shop. This will help save time and confusion. Here is the order in which you should give them your coupons:ECBs first, x/xx coupon second (You can do this first also), CVS Coupons, Highest value manufacture coupons, Lowest value manufacture coupons. This order works out best for me. It may be different for each person, but it has helped me to save over $40,000 at CVS in 2008
• Transfer your prescriptions there or have any new ones filled. There are many coupons out there for Gift Cards for New/Transferred scripts. If you have a Rite Aid, Walgreens or Target in town, you should be able to use their coupons for scrips also. Especially being a new store, they are going to want to get those competitors customers. For instance, Target recently had a coupon in their ad for a $10 gift card if you get a new/transferred prescription. You can use this at CVS! Then take that GC and only use it to pay your OOP (Out Of Pocket) for ECB items. Pretty soon you will have turned that GC into ECBs and got free stuff for doing so! Just this past week I needed a prescription and used the Target gift card coupon. I was out of my Diet Pepsi, which is like being out of coffee for some people, so I used that $10 Gift Card and got me 3 12 packs of Diet Pepsi!
• You can use CVS and Manufacture coupons togeather. If you get a CRT for $2 off Bayer aspirin and you have a $1 manufacturer coupon for Bayer aspirin then you get $3 off!
• Although the CVS coupon policy does allow for 2 coupons to be used when a item is BOGOF (one for each item), it is ultimately up to the store manager to accept both coupons.
• If an ECB promotion requires a certain number of items to be bought to qualify for the ECB reward, and there is a store BOGOF promotion, both items will count toward the promotion. For example, if Oral-B toothbrushes are BOGOF (buy-one-get-one-free) and there is currently a “Buy 3 Oral-B products and earn $5 ECB” promotion, you only have to buy 2 sets of the BOGO toothbrushes (4 total), instead of buying 3 sets (6 toothbrushes total). If an ECB promotion requires a certain amount of money to be spent to qualify for the ECB reward, and the item is BOGOF, the amount is calculated after the sale price, so the free item is not applied toward the promotion. Let’s assume that Oral-B toothbrushes retail for $3 and they are BOGOF while there is a “spend $10 in Oral-B products to earn $5 EB” promotion. If you spend $3 and buy two, only $3 will apply toward the promotion (not $6), because the free item was a part of the sale. ECB are calculated after sale prices but before coupons.
• When you receive a $/$$ cvs coupon, for example a $4/$20 cvs purchase your total must be $20 before your coupons. If you have 2 $5 off of $15 coupons, your total must be $30 or higher before coupons. If you are able to use two $X off of $XX coupons, the barcodes must be different. You cannot use two of the same barcode coupons at the same time.
• CVS registers are programmed to not allow overage. If you buy 5 Colgate Toothpastes on sale for $1.25 each, and plan to use 5 $1.50/1 coupons, the first 4 will scan without a problem. However, the last coupon will beep, and the register will not accept the coupon. The register will display a message to the cashier stating that the coupon has “exceeded limit” and it will prompt the cashier to modify the coupon to the max value (which is included in the prompt). In this case, the last coupon will be modified to 25c since: 5 items @ $1.25 each = $6.25 - 4 coupons @ $1.50/1 = $6.00. Difference is = $0.25 Therefore, the register will not let the last coupon to exceed the $0.25 “balance.”
• Sign up for e-mail through their webste. You will get coupons e-mailed to you.
• Buy things that you dont need and donate, sell, or gift them! If it is Free after ECBs and you have a coupon for it, then it is an automatic money maker!!! Say you buy an item for $10 and you have a $5 coupon for it and it gives you $10 ECBs. You have $5 Ecbs to spend, pay nothing out of pocket and get $10 ECBs! You just grew your ECBs by $5! If you do it right, you will walk out of the store with $100's worth of stuff for less than $1 oop everytime! Have fun!!!!

As with most stores, you will find that the coupon and store policies change. So please check the store's website to see the most current policies.
If you have stores in your area that are not coupon friendly, be sure to keep the CVS coupon policies with you. Also, send e-mails and questions to customer service and keep all of the replies with you so you can show the cashier.

Walgreens

Walgreens offers an incentive program called "Register Rewards". It works a lot like CVS's Extra Care Program except your purchases are not tracked by a shopping card. You purchase an item and you get a coupon after your transaction that can be spent on anything in the store. For instance, this week they have the Bayer Contour Glucose Meter on sale for $10 and you get $10 in Register Rewards. I had a coupon for the meter making it free. All I paid for was tax and got $10 good on my next purchase.
Here are a few tips for Walgreens:

• You can only get 1 register reward per transaction. In other words, if you get the Bayer Meter for $10, you cannot get 2 in that transaction and get $20. What you can do is split the transactions up into 2 transactions.
• You Can get more than one RR (Register Reward) per transaction for different items. For instance, you get the Bayer Meter and another item, say Tylenol which gives you $2 RR's, you get both the $10 RR and the $2 RR.
• You cannot use a RR that is for the same item and get another RR. Also, you cannot use the RR to pay for an item that is made by the same company. For instance, if you get a Tylenol and get your $2 RR, if you use that $2 RR to pay for another Tylenol your new $2 RR will not print. Also, if you were getting an Oral B toothbrush this week that gives a $2 RR and next week spend it on the Oral B floss which is giving $2 RR's but is a different sale, the $2 RR will not print. (This part is quite confusing which is why I am not a huge fan of Walgreens)
• Walgreens will accept 1 Walgreens Coupon and 1 manufacture coupon per item.
• Buy 1 Get 1 coupons cannot be used with a Buy 1 Get 1 Sale.
• If a coupon does not state a size restriction or does not state "Not valid for trial sizes" then your coupon can be used on trial sized items.
• You can use coupons on clearanced items.
• You cannot have less items than the number of manufacture coupons you are using. Register Rewards ring up as Manufacture coupons. So, if you buy 10 items and have 10 manufacture coupons and pay with your register rewards, that will be 11 manufacture coupons. You will need a filler item so that you have 11 items. A lot of times you can find a really cheap item near the register or a clearanced item to add to your order. Some examples of good filler items are: Pencils, Small packs of tissues, single candy
• Walgreens also offers 7 day coupons which are in their weekly ad. These are Walgreens coupons and can be combined with a manufacture coupon. You do not need a filler when using these.
• If your coupon is more than the price of an item, they are supposed to adjust the coupon down to the price of an item. They do not give cash back.
• The catalina machine is the little machine by the register where coupons print out after yiu finish your transaction. 2 types of coupons print from this machine, Register Rewards and product/store coupons.
• Make sure to sign up online for e-mail alerts because from time to Walgreens will send you coupons.

Rite-Aid

I am not a huge fan of the Rite-Aid cashback program. Unlike CVS and Walgreens where you get your cash back reward instantly, with Rite-Aid you have to fill out a rebate form and wait for your reward to be mailed to you.
But since there are often good deals there too, I will offer some advice and information about Rite-Aid.

• Rite-Aid does not have an official coupon policy anywhere. So you are at the mercy of the store manager or clerk that is working. What they say goes.
• Rite Aid now has Video Value coupons. You have to watch short videos in order to get these Rite Aid coupons. They are worth it because you can combine with manufacture coupons to get an even bigger discount. It can be found on their website.

Wholesale Clubs - SAMs CLUB and COSTCO

These wholesale clubs such as SAMS CLUB or COSTCO seem like a good idea, unless you are a couponer. I used to shop those places montly thinking I was saving our family lots of money. I would dish out $200-$300 a month at this place easily.

However, in reality, I was costing us more money. I would buy a huge box of toilet paper for $20 and be set for a Month. But I didnt know the power of coupons then. You cannot use coupons at these stores. After learning how to CVS, I am able to get all of my toilet paper for free now!

Would I suggest being a member? Sure. Only for the big ticket items though, not the groceries.
Target

Target's webiste has printable coupons. Some of the coupons are Target coupons and some are manufacture coupons. You can combine a Target coupon and a Manufacture coupon for 1 item.

Target will price match most local ads. They will only price match if there is a price listed and will not price match a percentage off, like Buy 1 Get 1 Free or half off.

Scan the endcaps (The ends of the isles) where a lot of good clearance items are found. A lot of times the sticker price is on the product is wrong so I suggest scanning to see the price, you may be surprised! I always carry my coupon binder into Target. The first thing I do is start along the outer isles and check the endcaps and match coupons to the clearanced items.

There is a system to their discounting. Certain days they discount certain areas. This may vary by store. For instance, at my store Toys are marked down on Thursdays and Sporting Goods on Fridays. Normally an item will be at 30% 2 weeks, 50% 2 weeks and then 75%. Holiday items are the exception which normally go to 50% immediately after the Holiday and 75% 4 days later and then 90% 2 days after that. I always hold out until 90%!

Grocery Stores

Everyone has their favorites and not everyone has time to drive all over town going to 2 or 3 different grocery stores to get the best deals. Not all towns have the same grocery stores either. My best suggestion is to find a grocery store that doubles or even triples coupons up to $0.99 value.
What is most important when grocery shopping is using coupons on items that are on sale. Using a coupon on anything is great, but you get your best value when the item is on sale. I very rarely buy something that is not already on sale and I always have a coupon to pair with the sale. If its not on sale, I dont buy it. If its on sale and I dont have a coupon for it, I dont buy it. Simple as that. Well, not really. You have to give up brand loyalty. It was hard to do at first, but after doing this I have found myself trying a lot of new things and enjoying a variety of foods and brands. Of course, if you are brand loyal to something, when it goes on sale and you have a coupon for it you need to stock up.

Harris Teeter

I prefer to shop at Harris Teeter. Harris Teeter will double a coupon up to $0.99 value. So if I have a $0.75 coupon then it is worth $1.50 at Harris Teeter. Also, Harris Teeter often has Triple Coupon and Super Double events.

• Only coupons that start with a "5" will double or triple
• They will only accept 3 "like" coupons for 3 "like" items. This can be interpreted differently, but the way that I have been explained is that if you have 3 identical coupons, you can only use those 3 on 3 of the same "brand". In other words, I cant use 6 of the same coupons and get 3 in one flavor and 3 in another flavor.
• They will only accept 2 of the same Internet Printed coupons
• They Will accept competitor coupons for money off the purchase price and they cannot be internet printed. For instance, Dollar General often has a coupon that comes out for $5 off $25 in their paper ad. Harris Teeter will accept those. However, CVS has a $5 off $20 coupon that is printed off your computer which Harris Teeter does not accept
• Get rainchecks. It is important to always get rainchecks. They do not expire and they are great for future Triple and Super Double events